By David Hardy

St. George Tucker was a revolutionary veteran, law professor at William and Mary, appointed to Virginia's highest court by Jefferson, and later to its Federal district court by Madison. He was a member of the Annapolis Convention (which led to the call for a constitution); his brother was in the House during the First Congress; his close friend John Page in the Senate. In short, he was in an extraordinary position to analyse the bill of rights. In 1803 he published his American edition of Blackstone's Commentaries, which became a standard reference work (W. Bryce, Legal Education in Virginia, notes that for 25 years it was the most-quoted text in Supreme Court opinions, and that Jefferson praised it as "the last perfect digest of both branches of the law.") In discussing Blackstone's mention of the English right to arms, he compares the American provision (calling it "article 4", since it was in that position until the first two amendments failed to be ratified, and comparing it with the British declaration of rights, which allowed arms suitable to a person's degree, and which was infringed by the "Hunting Acts," which forbade guns to anyone who did not own sufficient land:

at p. 144:

[Blackstone] "The fifth and last auxilliary right of the subject, that I shall at present mention, is that of having arms suitable for their defense /fn. 40/ suitable to their conditions and degree, and as allowed by law. /fn. 41/"

[Tucker's fns:] 40/The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. Amendments to the C., art. 4, and this without qualification as to their condition or degree, as is the case in the British government.

41/Whoever examines the forest and game laws in the British code, will readily perceive that the right of keeping arms is effectually taken away from the people of England. The commentator himself informs us that 'the prevention of popular insurrections and resistance to government, by disarming the bulk of the people, is a reason oftener meant than avowed by the makers of the forest and game laws."

At p.300, in Tucker's appendix on American law:

"A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed. Amendments to C., U.S., art. 4." "This may be regarded as the true palladium of liberty. The right of self defense is the first law of nature; in most governments it has been the study of rulers to confine this right within the narrowest limits possible. Wherever standing armies are kept up, and the right of the people to keep and bear arms is, under any color or pretext whatsoever, prohibited, liberty, if not already annihilated, is on the brink of destruction. In England, the people have been disarmed, generally under the specious pretext of preserving the game. True it is, that their bill of rights seems at first view to counteract this policy, but the right of bearing arms is limited to protestants, and the words 'suitable to their condition and degree' have been so interpreted, that not one man in five hundred can keep a gun in his house without being subject to a penalty."

There it is.... a constitutional scholar who was in the best position to know, in a work praised by Jefferson, discusses the second amendment in clearly individual terms, with nary a mention of the militia, and with specific condemnation of the British Hunting Acts, which operated to disarm individuals.